New to Natty? Helpful Hints Part 2
The best thing and the worst thing about moving to a brand new operating system is all of the new applications that are immediately available to you. With Ubuntu, an open-source GNU/Linux based operating system, this is compounded even more by the astounding number of options along with the close-to automated package management system and strong community support.
Therefore, it’s helpful to have a basic guide to guide new and returning users through the varied software options by highlighted specific popular packages and providing installation directions, along with information about where users can look for more options and support. By showing the new Ubuntu user the best of the software repository from the start, we can ensure retention and thereby further undercut the market share of the 800 lb gorillas in the OS market.
Seeing all of the software available for Ubuntu through the official repositories is an easy and enjoyable experience. In fact, you don’t even need to open an internet browser. You can see the repositories (or repo’s) in two different ways:
1. Click on the Add/Remove Programs option in the Applications menu. This will most of the more popular items, along with each package’s estimated popularity. The option to install is provided right through the dialog screen.
2. Use the Synaptic Package Manager, which is available through selecting System–>Administration–>Synaptic Package Manager. A search function is included, making this process even easier. Also, you can choose to update all of your current packages through the click of the button. More often than not, no restart or reboot is required.
Without further ado, here are some common applications for Ubuntu that you may want to install to replace what is supplied with the basic system:
Video players: VLC Player.
Astronomy: The Planetarium Stellarium, Celestia Universe’s browser.
Other: The audio and video converter WinFF, Comix, the writer K3b, Google Earth, Skype, and Acrobat Reader.
Video Games: Barrage, gBrainy, Glest, Flightgear, OpenArena, Toribash, StepMania, Frets on Fire, Zsnes, PSX, Mupen64, Dolphin, PCSX2, Warzone 2100
sudo apt-get install startupmanager
Kopete: Messenger with videoconference, for use with yahoo accounts, hotmail, gmail, aim, etc.
Virtualbox: To install other operating systems within Ubuntu.
DVDStyler: To create your own custom DVD menus.
Wine: To install windows programs on ubuntu linux.
Pomodoro Me: A program to increase productivity, assigned 25 minutes of activity followed by 5 minutes of rest, you just have to download the version with ubuntu and open ubuntu software center: http://www.odino.org/files/pomodorome_1.0.2-1.deb
- network.http.pipelining > Make it True
- network.http.pipelining.maxrequests > Make it 8 or 10
- network.http.proxy.pipelining > Make it True
- network.dns.disableIPv6 > Make it True
sudo leafpad /etc/X11/xorg.conf
Identifier “Configured Video Device”
EndSectionSection “Monitor”
Identifier “Configured Monitor”
EndSection
Section “Screen”
Identifier “Default Screen”
Monitor “Configured Monitor”
Device “Configured Video Device”
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection “Display”
Depth 24
Modes “1280×1024″ “1024×768″ “800×600″
EndSubSection
EndSection
Save the file.
Reboot and have a higher resolution on your desktop
To change the resolution, click menu, preferences, monitor settings, to choose the resolution and refresh rate to turn the monitor or not to use.
I am not sure why Firefox’s constant changes are good. (Security updates, keeping up with standards, etc.? Great. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure Chrome/chromium are fine in these regards.) I would really just go with whichever user interface you like better. There are down and dirty advantages (and disadvantages) to each, but most users just aren’t going to notice or care. Pick the one that is easiest for you and you think looks prettiest. Oh, and there’s always Opera, which some people like.
I say this as a Firefox user, by the way. I am extraordinarily adverse to UI change, and Firefox is still the closest to what I “grew up” with (Netscape). (I DO sometimes change my UI intentionally, of course, but only when there’s a lot of evidence that getting really used to the new thing will make me more productive. Chrome doesn’t offer that.)
Also, I don’t know if this was specific to my distro (not Ubuntu)/hardware/who the hell knows what, but I found Deluge to be annoyingly buggy. There were some serious memory leak issues, in addition to some magically disappearing torrent bugs. I tried it again two months ago, and some problems were fixed, but at least some of the memory leak issues remained. Currently I use transmission, but I’m not sure I’d recommend that to a novice. The moral is, though, that if something is broken, and you can’t or don’t want to figure out why, there is almost always an alternative.
Perhaps it might also be nice to mention avidemux and/or Kino, for video editing.
As I see it, the “Chrome / Chromium issue” boils right down to the fact that it is still basically beta for the distro. I’ll be happy to switch in a year or two when they are more caught up to where they should be – because when it worked well, it worked much better than FF did.
I find as time goes on, Deluge isn’t proving to be so great for me, either. I replaced Transmission, because I wanted more bells and whistles – but I have found that I do get a number of errors. Every other torrent seems to take forever to begin seeding, even though I have downloaded the entire file. If I delete it before it says seeding, I end up missing too many pieces – despite having downloaded 100% of the file.